U.S Defeat in Korengal Valley of Death

KABUL, Afghanistan (ABC News) – The beautiful, cedar-lined Korengal Valley has never been successfully occupied by a foreign force or even controlled by a central government, but the United States has spent five years fighting ferociously in the remote eastern Afghan gorge, only six miles long and two miles wide.

Forty-two service men died in the valley where, at one point, nearly a fifth of all the fighting in Afghanistan took place. Countless articles and television reports — many which won awards — focused on how difficult the warfare was in the area, dubbed by troops “The Valley of Death.” Even a video game featuring a Korengal firebase saw more than $300 million in sales the first day it was released.

But today the United States announced it is giving up on the Korengal Valley, moving the 130 or so troops stationed there to more populated centers. It is an admission that the valley, even though it was used as a supply route for insurgents, was never the right priority for U.S. troops fighting a counterinsurgency, and that the American presence itself was part of the problem.

Fighting in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley — A brief photo portfolio (CJTF101)

(Vanity Fair) – A strategic passage wanted by the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley is among the deadliest pieces of terrain in the world for U.S. forces. One platoon is considered the tip of the American spear. Its men spend their days in a surreal combination of backbreaking labor–building outposts on rocky ridges–and deadly firefights, while they try to avoid the mistakes the Russians made.

We are in the village of Aliabad, in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, and the platoon radioman has received word that Taliban gunners are watching us and are about to open fire. Signals intelligence back at the company headquarters has been listening in on the Taliban field radios. They say the Taliban are waiting for us to leave the village before they shoot.

Below us is the Korengal River and across the valley is the dark face of the Abas Ghar ridge. The Taliban essentially own the Abas Ghar. The valley is six miles long, and the Americans have pushed halfway down its length. In 2005, Taliban fighters cornered a four-man navy-seal team that had been dropped onto the Abas Ghar, and killed three of them, then shot down the Chinook helicopter that was sent in to save them. All 16 commandos on board died.

Dusk is falling and the air has a kind of buzzing tension to it, as if it carries an electrical charge. We only have to cover 500 yards to get back to the safety of the firebase, but the route is wide open to Taliban positions across the valley, and the ground has to be crossed at a run. The soldiers have taken so much fire here that they named this stretch “the Aliabad 500.”